Scott C Edmunds

We made it to the end of #ICG20 and Huanming Yang is talking about what next year should cover. Maybe this isn’t going to be the last meeting after all!

Another genome project filling the evolutionary and taxonomic gap, Qin Song presented on spirulina algal genomics #ICG20

Now up is plant biotechnology pioneer Marc Van Montagu talking about awaking life in the desert #ICG20

Make room for the mushrooms. Interesting factoid - China has 1789 edible and 798 medicinal mushroom species. Producing 80% of the world’s mushroom output #ICG20

Now up is Fuqiang Yu from KIB on a new project, the 10K Macrofungi Omics Initiative. Very under sampled. There are 2.2-3.8M fungi, but only 150K mushrooms and other macrofungi #ICG20

Talking about the commitment to #opendata, but Harris also stressing the care they are taking to meet CBP obligations, ABS policies on use of Digital Sequence Information #ICG20

Harris taking about the scaling, phases and estimated cost recently updated. See the recent paper in Frontiers covering this in more detail ttps://doi.org/10.3389/fsci.2025.1514835

Getting the origin story of the EBP from Harris, and the scoping meetings at the Smithsonian (I remember that first big meeting there well) #ICG20

Harris Lewin giving us a big overview of the Earth Genome Project at #ICG20

Xiaolin Li, AI chief scientist at Hangzhou Institute of Medina showcasing their ScholarClub multi purpose AI agent for research #ICG20

Roland saying the only decent health data resource in Germany is from insurance claims. Though can see biases in this of clinicians pushing more expensive prognoses. Used this data in their work validating their disease risk prediction models across 3 healthcare systems (UK, US and Germany) #ICG20

Roland Eils, new Dean at the Fudan Imtelligent Medicine Institute, talking about AI models based on multi-omics and health data for disease risk prediction #ICG20

#ICG20 moves to the impressive Zhejiang Lab today, an incredible campus that is home to China’s non-profit AI research institute

Rory Collins says his mentor was Richard Peto who told him you get 1 point for doing the work, but 100 points for getting someone else to do it for you. UKBB followed that strategy to get everyone else in the world to work for the UK. Each $ spent got $12 dollars back in investment #ICG20

Panel with all the Biobanking session participants. First very important question on the geopolitical access issue. Being asked if UK will follow the US in closing dbGAP access, Rory says the UKBB move to Trusted Research Environment access rather than downloads makes it easier to stay open #ICG20

Yunghui Yang ending by saying CNCB are planning to join the INSDC, but there are no timelines given #ICG20

On top of a being a lookielikie INSDC sequencing data repository they are also working on a Shanzhai Bioimage Archive #ICG20

Yang plugging they are endorsed by FAIRsharing and are only one of two Chinese resources in the GCBR core bioresources #ICG20

Last talk in the biobanking track is from Yangui Yang from China National Centre for Bioinformation. Telling CNGB are presenting here and not China National Genebank #ICG20

Another advantage Singapore has is high public trust in government, PRECISE carried out “citizen juries” to get input on the public’s attitudes on data access to their sequencing data. Started with early access to Singapore researchers. Now building a pharma consortium funding proteomics #ICG20

Great advantage linking PRECISE with Singapore’s healthcare system is the follow up and integration with the healthcare records. Created a Trusted Research Environment to access all of this #ICG20

Now to Singapore, Weiling Zheng is presenting on PRECISE and the Singapore National Precision Medicine (NPM) program. Following a 3 phase project building up to sequence 10% of the population (~450K people) #ICG20

Interesting already 1/3 of the data access requests for MCPS are coming from researchers in China. After the reception this talk is getting sure it will go higher… #ICG20

This is the slide everyone is waiting for, Jason saying since May all the MCPS data is available for #opendata access in a similar manner to UK Biobank. Can even access in the cloud via DNANexus. Also building a PheWeb website for moving beyond GWAS #ICG20

Crowd getting excited to hear Regeneron has funded sequencing of 140K of the cohort (mostly SNP arrays and exomes, but 10K WGS). I assume they are going to get a lot of data access requests from China #ICG20

Jason Torres now presenting on the Mexico City Prospective study. The largest and longest running blood-based prospective study in Latin America. Was set up in the late 90’s to study smoking, but has grown to become a more general prospective study #ICG20

Next talk is on the China Kadoorie Biobank, LV Jun (PKU) giving an update on progress but as it’s in Chinese and has Chinese slides it’s hard for the international delegates to get much insight #ICG20

Great to get Rory’s insight comparing the UKBB, All of Us, and the China Kadoorie Biobank. Says CKBB has the biggest potential due to the scale and follow-up, but accessibility is the issue currently holding it back. UKBB currently leads the world on this issue #ICG20

Packed auditorium at #ICG20 for Rory Collins giving his CEO level view of the UK Biobank

Packed auditorium at #ICG20 for Rory Collins giving his CEO level view of the UK Biobank